


space cowboy

by sirendoom



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Aliens, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirendoom/pseuds/sirendoom
Summary: in which a human child and stranger to earth decide to steal a nasa spaceship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 1





	space cowboy

smoke billowed around the burning wreckage of cage’s ship, sending thick black clouds into the bright blue sky. and yeah, his ship was destroyed (and all his belongings with it), but  _ damn _ , he hadn’t seen a proper blue sky in ages.

his eyes drifted down towards the horizon to scan for civilization, but all he could see was miles and miles of sand and cacti. he put his hands in his pockets and brought his gaze back to his busted ship, then sighed. depending on how advanced the life here was, getting a new ship might prove to be difficult; a lot of outer arm planets put high prices on horrible ships. also, his bike was probably scrapped, meaning he was stranded in the middle of this seemingly endless desert with nothing but his telecom and small pistol.

hopefully this planet wasn’t  _ all _ desert—that would mean life forms probably weren’t highly developed. he could’ve  _ sworn _ it had come up blue on the alert, though.

he pulled out his telecom and brought up the information for the star system. strangely enough, this planet was practically unexplored, even though the red planet from the system was nearly entirely mapped out.

that gave him a bad notion. why would  _ this _ place be untouched?

the most reasonable explanation was that it was populated by hostiles.

he aimed his telecom at the sky and scanned for any imaging satellites, not expecting much from an unmapped planet, but surprisingly, multiple strong signals connected to show a snapshot of his location. he spotted what looked like a small city to the northwest of the smoke over his location. he tagged his wreck, then set off in the direction of the city.

hours later, he finally set foot on the main road of the small city—well. it was not, in fact, a small city, but more of a ghost town, consisting of a street passing through approximately five buildings, along with a couple farmhouses spread across the nearby desert. it was definitely not the type of place one might find a spaceship.

regardless, he headed down the street, squinting at the signs above the shops:  _ general store _ ,  _ guns & ammunition _ ,  _ butcher _ ,  _ sally’s saloon _ , and  _ horse tack _ . all very primitive sounding, aside from the saloon. naturally, he headed there.

the place  _ looked _ like a ghost town, but as soon as he neared the saloon, noise filled his ears. as soon as his boots hit the wooden floor and the bell above the door rang, all the chatter died and the creatures inside watched him walk slowly up to the bartender.

the implant in his ear was supposed to translate any native language into galactic standard automatically, then translate his words into the native language. however, this language was only partially on file, and he only found a few basic phrases that could be translated. he said to the bartender, “one drink.”

the bartender cocked an eyebrow. “what kind?”

cage found no drink types aside from water and milk in the language. “doesn’t matter.”

the creatures in the bar looked… quite similar to the species from cage’s home world, but much shorter. perhaps all he was to them was a tall dark stranger.

everyone’s eyes were still on him. there were six men and four women, at least from what he could tell. the bartender poured a drink and slid it to cage as he scoured the database trying to figure out why there wasn’t any information on this planet. what he found was… not good.

everything regarding the planet was covered in warnings of hostiles and reports of kidnappings. unethical experiments. heavy weapons. there were images of the probes that these creatures had sent into space, and—they were child’s toys. this planet knew nothing of space travel. this was great. just great.

he scoured the database for any more  _ earth _ languages and was surprised to find an almost complete dictionary of the earth language  _ español _ . it was, however, specific to only a few areas of the planet. turns out, there are  _ hundreds _ of native earth languages, making it insanely difficult to communicate. cage added  _ español _ to his comm and accepted the drink from the bartender, then nodded.

“thank you,” he said in galactic standard, which translated into  _ español _ to sound like, “ _ gracias _ .”

then the bartender said something about mexicans that he couldn’t understand. 

he decided not to stick around, considering this place was a bust, so he dropped a few coins on the counter and stood.

where the hell was he supposed to find the parts to build a spaceship on a hostile, primitive world where he could only communicate with six percent of its inhabitants?

once outside, he hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and took another look at the small town. did these creatures even have transportation that didn’t involve animals? were all points of civilization as bleak and empty as this place?

he took a step toward the guns & ammunition store and was slammed into by something small and fast. he stumbled back and said, “whoa, watch out there!” then looked down to see a small child staring up at him, fascinated. “oh, hello?”

“you speak  _ español _ ?” the child asked shyly.

“i—yes,” he answered, crouching to be closer to her level. “are you lost?”

“no but  _ you _ look lost. where are you from?”

“uh… the desert.” he gestured in the direction of his wreck, then looked that way to see black smoke still rising miles away.

“are you from that smoke?”

“well… yeah.”

“what happened?”

“my ship crashed.”

“your ship?”

“spaceship.”

her eyes lit up. “ _ spaceship _ ?”

he nodded.

“are you from space?”

“well, i’m not from this planet, that’s for sure.”

“so you’re an  _ alien _ ?”

she looked too excited for her own good.

“sure.”

“you don’t  _ look _ like an alien.”

“well, what  _ do _ i look like?”

she tapped her chin, squinted, and tilted her head, then after a pause, “more like a cowboy.”

“a  _ cowboy _ ? i can’t say i know what that means.”

“cowboys are cool,” she said, and he thought she was going to leave it at that, but then she added, “they wear hats and boots and they ride on horses and round up cows and shoot people.”

he raised his eyebrows. “that’s what  _ i _ look like? …i’m not much of an animal person, but i have boots and a gun.”

“you have a  _ gun _ ?” she looked even more excited than she had before, if that was possible. “can i see?”

“well… technically that’s an aggressive action, and this planet isn’t part of the alliance of outer planets… and you’re a kid, which would make aggressions ten times more illegal…”

“please?” she begged. “you don’t have to shoot it i just wanna  _ seeeeee _ !”

he pursed his lips and gingerly drew the blaster from his belt, glancing around cautiously. “well, what the landgrave doesn’t know won’t kill me…”

“that doesn’t look like a gun,” the little girl said, knitting her eyebrows. “it looks like a blender.”

“a… a what?”

“where are the bullets?”

“there aren’t any  _ bullets _ … that type of gun is outdated by a couple  _ centuries _ , kid. don’t guns on this planet fire lasers?”

“ _ no _ ? your gun shoots  _ lasers _ ?”

“well… yeah…?”

her expression changed to something more pleading. “i know i said you don’t have to shoot it but… can you shoot it once? please please please  _ pleeease _ ?”

“you love pushing the limits, huh, kid.” he unlocked his blaster and set it to shock, then fired once at the road. a burst of purple lit up the nearby buildings and left a scorch mark in the dirt. “happy?”

“ _ whoa _ ,” was all she said.

cage squinted back up at the town and scowled. “so i guess this planet doesn’t have spaceships yet?”

“oh, we do. they’re guarded by the government, though.” she frowned and took a small device that looked similar to cage’s telecom out of her pocket. she typed something in, then turned the screen toward him. “ _ this _ is texas, where you crash landed. the government makes rockets and spaceships  _ here _ , in houston.”

“how far is houston from texas?”

“it’s  _ part _ of texas, but it’s kinda far. it says it’s eight hours to drive there.”

“oh, you  _ do _ have vehicles?”

“yeah, my m— _ i _ have a car, it can go pretty fast.”

“you’re a kid? right? how can you drive?”

“don’t worry about it? you can drive?”

“ _ i _ can drive?”

“it’s probably not that different from your spaceship?”

“okay?” cage shook his head. “so we’re driving eight hours to buy a spaceship?”

“they’re not for  _ sale _ ! they’d cost millions of dollars! no, we’re gonna  _ steal _ one.”

“ _ what _ ? how are an alien and a small child supposed to steal a government rocket?”

“we’ll figure it out okay! trust me. you’ll be back to wherever you came from in no time.” she darted off and he jogged after her. “c’mon, space cowboy!”


End file.
